Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-250) and index.

Demonized by governments and the media as criminals, glorified within their own subculture as outlaws, hackers have played a major role in the short history of computers and digital culture-and have continually defied our assumptions about technology and secrecy through both legal and illicit means. In Hacker Culture, Douglas Thomas provides an in-depth history of this important and fascinating subculture, contrasting mainstream images of hackers with a detailed firsthand account of the computer underground. Addressing such issues as the commodification of the hacker ethos by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, the high-profile arrests of prominent hackers, and conflicting self-images among hackers themselves, Thomas finds that popular hacker stereotypes reflect the public's anxieties about the information age far more than they do the reality of hacking.

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